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The Times Herald : Serving Montgomery County, PA

Friday, October 25, 2013

Equality

Last night I participated in a Meet the Candidate forum and a reporter from the online newspaper, Patch, was there. This morning I went online to see if there was anything about the session. There was not, but I did find an article that was of interest which talked about the 10 most LGBT Employment-friendly states. They are (in order): California (naturally), Connecticut, Iowa (really?), Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Now, you might wonder why I, a straight woman, would care about this.

I do care about it and I think everyone should. America has always touted themselves as the home of the free and we are not free until everyone one of us as the same rights as everyone else. In Pennsylvania, it is still legal to fire someone because they are gay. HB300 is a bill that would change all that but it has been languishing in committee and with this current administration probably won't come out this session. If you don't think that is more important than the economy or the environment, you are wrong. Having an employment friendly state affects our bottom line. People will come here for jobs. People will come here to live, and they will spend their money here. Our economy will be stronger because of it.

Additionally, Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers. One of the fundamental practices of that religion is acceptance and it is unthinkable that we should not have a commonwealth were acceptance is the norm. Yes, that was a long time ago, but the standards should remain the same. If we as a Commonwealth begin to practice the same acceptance, it will benefit us all.